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5 more athletes from U.P. qualify for Asian Games; count goes up to 8
As many as three from Meerut, including javelin thrower Anu Rani, hammer thrower M Rachna, and other hammer thrower Tanya Chaudhary, and Prayagraj’s Ajay Kumar Saroj in 1,500-metre race qualified for the Asian Games.
LUCKNOW Uttar Pradesh athletes continued to hog the limelight at the National Inter-State Athletics Championship at Bhubaneswar on Monday as five athletes made the cut for the forthcoming Asian Games.
As many as three from Meerut, including javelin thrower Anu Rani, hammer thrower M Rachna, and other hammer thrower Tanya Chaudhary, and Prayagraj’s Ajay Kumar Saroj in 1,500-metre race qualified for the Asian Games.
Apart from them, three other athletes from Uttar Pradesh, including long-distance runner Karthik Kumar of Saharanpur and Gulveer Singh of Meerut and steeplechaser Parul Chaudhary of Meerut, have already secured the ticket to the Asian Games.
The event’s final day started with gold medals for M Rachna and silver for Tanya Chowdhary in hammer throw. The two also created new meat records. While Rachna won the gold medal with a throw of 65.03m, Tanya bagged the silver medal with a throw of 63.16 metres. The qualifying mark for the Asian Games was 62.03m.
For ace javelin thrower, Anu Rani, this would be the hat-trick of participation in the Asian Games. On Monday, she finished top with a throw of 58.22m, crossing the qualifying mark for the Asian Games of 56.46m. On the other hand, Ajay Kumar Saroj of Prayagraj qualified for the Asian Games by clocking 3 minutes 42.96 seconds in the 1,500-metre race. The event also witnessed a unique record -- out of 12 athletes, 11 ran within the qualifying mark in 1,500 metres. The qualifying mark for the Asian Games was 03:47.84 minutes.
Separately, Meerut’s Kiran Baliyan won the gold medal in shot put with 17.17m and presented her strong claim by crossing the Asian Games qualifying mark of 16.30m. The day also witnessed a rare success for young Harmilan Bains, the daughter of Balamau’s Madhuri Saxena, as she made it to the Asian Games mark even while winning a silver medal in the 1,500-metre race. Bains represented Punjab in the championship, but her mother Madhuri, an ex-inmate of the athletics hostel here in Lucknow, had claimed a silver medal at the Busan Asian Games in 2002.
